Computing diverse solutions to optimization problems

Classical optimization methods determine a single optimal or near-optimal solution for a decision problem. In many applications, however, the decision maker is interested in evaluating a pool of high-quality solutions, to encode fairness-oriented criteria or to obtain a portfolio of alternatives to use in case of unexpected scenarios. In this paper, we consider the problem … Read more

A Lifting-and-Splitting Framework for Risk-Averse Distributionally Robust Multi-Item Newsvendor Problems

Risk-averse distributionally robust multi-item newsvendor problems provide a fundamental model for inventory decisions under demand uncertainty, limited distributional information, and downside-risk concerns. We study this problem under mean-covariance demand ambiguity, where the decision maker maximizes the worst-case conditional value-at-risk of profit. While cross-item demand correlations are important for portfolio-level inventory decisions, they are difficult to … Read more

Order-2 Tightness of Block-Sparse SOS Relaxations for One-Layer ReLU Network Verification with a Matching Input-Sharing Graph

Azuma, Kim, and Yamashita formulated the verification problem for one-layer ReLU networks as a quadratically constrained quadratic program and established tight semidefinite relaxations for the edgeless case and for one-unit settings. In this work, we represent the sharing pattern of undecided ReLUs over a box input set through an input-sharing graph and focus on the … Read more

A Numerically-safe Branch-Price-and-Cut Algorithm for the Length-Constrained Cycle Partition Problem

The length-constrained cycle partition problem (LCCP) is a graph optimization problem in which a set of nodes must be partitioned into a minimum number of cycles. Every node is associated with a critical time and the length of every cycle must not exceed the critical time of any node in the cycle. We formulate LCCP … Read more

Integrating Power Profile Optimization with Timetabling for Underground Train Networks

We study energy-efficient operation of underground train networks, where energy from regenerative braking is usable only if another train in the same electrically isolated subnetwork accelerates simultaneously. Timetabling models for this setting typically fix one velocity profile per leg and running time, which limits the matching of braking and accelerating phases. We drop this assumption … Read more

Optimal Combinatorial Testing with Constraints: The Balancing Act

Imagine that you are in front of a cockpit with several on–off buttons. If you were to thoroughly test it, you would need to try a prohibitive number of configurations. But since most bugs in practice can be isolated to interactions among few components, having tests that cover every possible pairwise configuration is a good … Read more

Convexlikeness and Supportedness in Quadratic Multiobjective Optimization

This paper studies geometric and structural properties of quadratic multiobjective optimization problems. Thereby, a multiobjective optimization problem is called convexlike if the upper image, i.e., the image set plus the nonnegative orthant, is a convex set. Moreover, we say that a feasible point is supported in case it is a minimal solution of a weighted … Read more

Attention Mechanisms in Physics-Inspired Graph Neural Networks for the Max-Cut Problem

Physics-Inspired Graph Neural Networks (PI-GNNs) reformulate MAX-CUT as QUBO energy minimization, training a GNN to produce soft binary node assignments without labeled data. The baseline PI-GCN uses static, degree-normalized aggregation, while its attention-augmented counterpart PI-GAT—built on GATv2—introduces additional hyperparameters whose effects remain uncharacterized. This paper addresses that gap through controlled experiments on five Gset benchmark … Read more

Random-Key Optimization for 2D Irregular Packing with Reusable Area Evaluation

The diverse constraints of industrial applications lead to variants of 2D irregular packing problems that require tailored solution methods. This paper addresses a real-world industrial challenge by proposing a new problem definition, the Maximum Reusable Contiguous Area Problem (MRCAP), and a novel metric, the Maximum Contiguous Area, developed to measure and maximize the contiguous unused … Read more

Robust Chance-Constrained Optimization using a Continuous Parameter Space Wasserstein-2 Ambiguity Set of Gaussian Mixtures

We study distributionally robust linear chance-constrained problems in which uncertainty is modeled by a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Finite-support distributionally robust (FDR) formulations, widely used in data-driven robust optimization, robustify over empirical mixture support points and therefore primarily stress-test the fitted nominal mixture. This can be insufficient when service reliability depends on structural misspecification of … Read more